If you don’t have time to watch the entire 152 episode Fist of the North Star television series from the 80’s, these movies are the next best thing.

This series follows the first Fist of the North Star movie – the series which takes place in a Martial Arts meets Mad Max style post apocalyptic world. You’ve got 3 feature length films and 2 OVA’s (Original Video Animation), each focusing on different characters and points in the Fist of the North Star timeline.

Presented with much slicker animation and compressing certain main events of the original series, The Legends of the True Saviour is a must watch for fans of Fist of the North Star.

Below is a summary of the five releases in this series:

The Legend of Raoh – Chapter of Death in Love

This feature length animation introduces the three brothers Ken, Toki and Roah in their younger days training as children.

This film very quickly cuts to their adult life and the stroy arc where Kenshiro fights Souther – the Holy Emperor of Nanto Seinken. Whilst the movie is ‘The Legend of Roah’ and does tell us a bit more about him, the focus is more spread and is a nice re telling of the events around this time and in many cases is almost word for word and shot for shot the same as the original series.

Ken also meets up with another Nanto Seinken warrior named Shuu, who blinded himself to save Kenshiro when Ken was a child. The two get to know each other as adults before facing off against the powerful and oppressive Emperor Souther.

This is without a doubt one of the most interesting of the series with terrific animation and the most interesting story. It’s the perfect step toward the second ‘Legend of Raoh’ film.

The Legend of Yuria

This is an hour long OVA which revolves around Ken’s fiancee Yuria, who is stolen from Kenshiro by the Nanto Seinken warrior Shin.

We are given a retelling of her life from a small child, the troubles she faced with her emotional trauma and her growing up with Ken before things go bad.  After that we are told the story of her becoming the last General of Nanto Seinken and where things head from there, crossing over to the end of ‘Roah – Death in Love’ (above).

It offers a lot of insight to various aspects of her character and the events within the series.  It’s quite interesting. This chapter ties both Ken, Roah & Toki’s stories together with Yuria, and becomes the perfect setup for the next Chapter.

The Legend of Raoh – Chapter of Fierce Fight

This one is my favorite! The end of the first Fist of the North Star series is retold in this feature length chapter.  

Kenshiro has evolved into the most powerful and skilled  Hokuto Shinken Practitioner in it’s 2000 year history and is taking on Raoh in their final battle.

Of course the battle is epic and everything comes boiling down to this epic finale.  This film retells the finale with the same events as the television series, but taken from Raoh’s perspective.  We learn a little more about his motives and personal struggles against the seemingly stronger little brother Kenshiro – the successor of the Hokuto Shinken style.

Very itneresting and captures the epic ending the first series terrifically well.

The Legend of Toki

This is another chapter which takes a step back before the events of ‘Roah – Fierce Fight’ (above), and in my opinion should really be watched beforehand for chronological order.

This OVA takes the character of Toki and looks into his history, the events of his life, death and personality.  As a unique character in the series, I really enjoyed this chapter, and his final battle with Roah is as interesting as any in the series and has a great deal of emotion within it. Another must see in this series.

The Legend of Kenshiro

I was excited for this one – a chapter based around the main man of Fist of the North Star. It was good, but the weakest of the series in my opinion.

After everything has happened, Yuria and Ken are enjoying life, and Ken goes on to tell his story – what happened to him after Shin stole Yuria and left Ken half dead in the desert.  Ken is captured and becomes a prisoner before naturally doing the whole savior thing and saving everybody, realizing his destiny.

It’s like a whole new story which conveniently fits in toward the beginning of the franchise, but it’s just not as strong.  The connection between him and Nanto, or his brothers his gone and so is the connection with the overall legacy.  It’s basically just a series of events and fights which reminds a little of ‘New Fist of the North Star’.

There is a curveball however – Yuria implies that she is pregnant with Ken’s child!  After the events of the second series, we’re left to wonder what happened here – did she give birth?  Who knows.  This topic is touched on for a whole second before being moved on.

This is one chapter that could be seen first as the least interesting and earliest chain of events (except for Ken marrying Yuria and implying that she is pregnant, before telling his story).

Overall?

A fantastic tale that touches on the destiny of certain characters.  The character of Ken is a good middle ground between the overly aggressive Roah and the gentle and kind Toki.

The action isn’t bad as far as anime goes, although these aren’t heavily animated fights as much as epic battles told with powerful moves and words, much like Dragon Ball Z – but it’s still fantastic. Legends of the True Savior makes for a decent watch for anyone not familiar with the Fist of the North Star story, but for fans of the franchise is a must see and is absolutely fantastic!